BlizzCon 2009: 15 Minutes on the Street

There are all kinds of people at BlizzCon, and the vast majority of them aren't developers or exhibitors -- they're players and Blizzard fans just like you who come out to see what Blizzard's got to show them. We spent a large amount of time this weekend talking to devs and exhibitors and gathering information, but we definitely also wanted to speak with players as well -- see what they thought of the show and how their experience went.

Of course we talked with more players than we could ever fit here -- we ended up having over 1200 people stop by our meetup on Thursday night (and I did my best to shake hands with as many of them as I could), and all weekend long, players came up to us and said hi, telling us their classes and spec and what they liked and didn't like about the show and our site. Here's four small interviews that we had with players at the show, done by Robin Torres and I. It's just one tiny look at a few people walking around the 'Con, but it should give you a little insight into what the mood was like last weekend.

Hey, what's your name?Kevin Droptiny (picture above).

Main character race and class?Main character is Ezra -- he's a Hunter and a Troll.

What kind of stuff do you do in the game?I'm very casual -- I'm busy with work and I have kids.

Me too!I play about maybe 10-12 hours a week.

Well I don't have kids, but I'm very busy with work. What level are you?Uh, 46.

So you're a midlevel guy, that's cool. How long have you been playing?Off and on since '05.

So BlizzCon. What are you here for? What is it that makes the whole event for you?I really wanted to see Diablo 3 stuff.

And you saw it?It was great.

Seemed still pretty far from done to me. The talent trees were still empty.Yeah, no real descriptions yet even.

But the game's good, right?Oh yeah it was great.

What did you think of the Monk?Loved it. That's the first thing I played when I got in line. I was very excited when I saw it out there and playable.

How far did you come to be at BlizzCon? Who are you here with?I'm here by myself, I'm from Michigan. Davison, Michigan, it's near Flint.

Any Blizzard revelations here that rocked your world?I'm excited to come back to the old world in Cataclysm.

Yeah, that literally did rock the world. And you're midlevel -- will you keep leveling or reroll?I'll probably stay with the character -- I have other characters that are level 80, but that's what I'm playing right now.

What 80s do you have? I have an 80 Rogue and a Warlock.

Given what we've heard about the expansion, what do you think about the arc of the game as a whole? Oh yeah, it's great to see Deathwing back, that's a long time coming. Onyxia's coming back, that'll be amazing.

I have yet to meet a person who doesn't know who Deathwing is, but they must be out there.Oh yeah, I played the game, I read all the books.

Finally, there's lots of energy and ideas here. What new enthusiasm will you be taking home with you? Something you learned about or saw that you're looking forward to trying back home. Just the whole World of Warcraft. The new expansion. It's going to be interesting to go through the old levels now, so I'll try to do it as soon as I can, to see how the expansion changes it.

I said finally, but I have one more question -- Let's talk swag! What did you think of the swag bag, did you pick up anything cool at the show?Swag bag was good.

Are you going to eBay it?[laughs] No. I bought the hardcover comic collection that they had. Wanted to get a couple of the books but they were sold out. I'll probably pick up the new t-shirt with Deathwing on the front.

Oh yeah! I want one of those too. Great, thanks very much!You're welcome.

How far did you come to be at BlizzCon, and who are you here with?I came from Pasadena with friends.

Any Blizzard revelation that simply rocks your world?Cataclysm as the route to re-engineer the old world to give it value again. Adding flight everywhere and reinvigorating the game to make it that much more exciting.

What change do you wish they weren't making?I am interested yet nervous about the complete removal of all but the base stats. Number crunching is part of the fun. I get crazy with itemization in a good way.